Morag has
made life casts of many artists from Film, Theatre,
and Television.
Sometimes the cast is only of the face or head and
sometimes the whole body or part of it. The reasons
have been varied;
for making prosthetic make-up pieces, sometimes for
SFX as in Mission to Mars where a small meteorite had
to
pierce the hand Jerry O’Connell, and sometimes
to make personally fitting ‘body pans‘ where
the artist has to be supported as if weightless or
for flying sequences.
Sometimes
it is to
duplicate the artist as with the decapitated heads
from Shakespeare’s Henry’s, or for a whole
body as in Singing Detective where it was seen to be
immersed
in and dragged from the river Thames.
Morag has also
taught life casting, with all its health and safety
issues, at Shepperton Film Studios in the UK and
at Capilano College in Vancouver, Canada.
Body
in Question. BBC TV Science programme. A life cast was
made of Michael Gough who had a full beard at
the time which could not be shaved off as he was acting
in theatre in the West End. Here the modelled egg shape
in clay over the life cast. The philosophising Humpty
Dumpty ready for set.
The Green Man. BBC TV Drama.
Starring
Albert Finney.
During
a dream sequence a man had to turn into a tree and a life
cast was first made from the actor, then the bark of a
tree modelled onto the cast of the body. The finished girdle
was made in one piece of prosthetic grade foam. Make-up
artists then blended the colour up into the actors own
skin. A life cast of Albert Finney’s face was also
made for other reasons.
Northern Lights. Disney TV. Actor John
Hoffman played a character who had a hare lip. First
a dental prosthesis was used to hook up his upper lip,
then Morag made a life cast and sculpted what must be
the smallest prosthetic appliance ever. It had to look
like the scarring from the kind of surgery that the character
would have had at that time. A new ‘piece’ was
applied every day. Make up artist: Norma Hill-Patton.
Stunt
double having life cast made
(above) Intricate mould for a gargoyle
for Scooby Too
Mission
to Mars.Touchstone
Pictures. Life casting for body
'pans'
Scooby Too.Warner
Bros. Intricate mould
for column base (half)
I-Spy. Columbia
Pictures. Complex mould for stone filigree
sceen.
Curse of the Fire Beetle. BBC
TV. Starting
mould of gold disk.
Pinocchio: Byre
Theatre, St. Andrews. Life cast
of Alison Connell who played Pinocchio. This was made
so that the ‘growing nose could be made specifically
for her.
Into
the Woods: Byre Theatre, St. Andrews. Life
casts were made of the artists who played the witch and
the wolf. The witch mask was made of a prosthetic quality
foam latex and the wolf as a two piece mask which allowed
the actor to talk and sing while the mask itself animated.
Shakespeare’s ‘Henrys’. BBC
TV. Morag first made all the
life casts of the actors who had to be decapitated
in this series of plays before going on to create
the heads. They included Bernard Hill and Trevor
Peacock among others.
Body
in Question. BBC TV Science programme. A life cast was
made of Michael Gough who had a full beard at
the time which could not be shaved off as he was acting
in theatre in the West End. Here the modelled egg shape
in clay over the life cast. The philosophising Humpty
Dumpty ready for set.
